First post! I’ve started carrying two rods with me in my work truck and fishing wherever i am close to during my lunch hour. I just throw some shrimp in my lunch cooler in the morning. Today I fished a dock off Hamlin Creek on IOP. Started off fishing with shrimp. The very first cast had a whiting and a spot on the same rig. Caught a few more of each, then switched to fiddlers and fished the pilings. Caught four sheepshead, two keepers and threw two back. Then my smallest light tackle rod, the one i use to catch shark bait, and never sees anything bigger than a whiting doubles over. The fish makes a run straight for underneath the neighbors dock. I manage to pull it back away from the pilings before it can get wrapped around a piling or cut the line on oysters. It heads for deeper water. I fight it for about 10 minutes, back and forth, just trying to keep it from under our dock or our neighbors. I finally get it close to the surface. Still cant see it, but i can see the water eddying from it swimming. Whatever it is, it is huge! I jump from the dock down to the floating dock, and manage to work the fish to the floating dock and I can finally see it. The biggest sheepshead I have ever hooked in my life. It was way over 10 lbs. It makes another few runs, work it back to the dock. Unfortunately I am by myself and have no landing net. I try to work it close enough to grab by the gills, the fish is just hanging out on the surface, completely worn out. I’m almost close enough to touch it and it makes one last run and pops my line. A small part of me dies.
I get a few more bites, nothing too crazy, and I run out of fiddlers and have to go back to work. It was kinda heartbreaking to lose that fish, but really fun to fight on such light tackle. And I caught enough fish to feed my family for dinner. A really good day, even if I still had to work.
I fished this same spot two weeks ago and it was nearly dead. Caught one spot in an hour and no other bites. The fish are definitely coming back.
Exciting read. Sorry to hear it got away.